Literacy skills for 200 refugee women and girls

Jennifer a 24 year old refugee from South Sudan dropped out of formal education at the age of 11 when her father forced her into marriage. With no skills to initiate any income generating activity, Jenniffer was left to depend on relief supplies from NGOs.

In 2021, Jennifer enroled in oen of our integrated Functional Adult Literacy program in which she received entreprenuership skills. With the inspiration from the training, Jennifer sought to start poultry farming. Fortunately, Voice for Humanity Uganda received funding from Go Campaign in 2022 to support young mothers like Jennifer have access to farming tools. She was able to receive 5 start up poultry birds. With the knowledge on business management received during the Adult Learning sessions, Jennifer has managed to care for her poultry birds and today she has over 15 birds. 'My plan is to develop my poultry business with the business skills I received so that i can be able to earn atleast $5000 annualy from sale poultry which will enable me pay school fees of my children''. 'I am so happy for that training otherwise i would npot have been able to manage this poultry business today'.

Like Jennifer, many of the beneficiaries of our Functional Adult Literacy program had managed to initiate successful small scale business because of the entreprenuership skills that they received.

Maria, a South Sudanese refugee single mother and widow of 5 children currently staying at Boroli Settlement of Adjumani runs one of the most successful small scale business within the refugee settlement. This was all because of the business management skills that Maria acquired during the 6 months Integrated Functional Adult Literacy Training that she attended in 2019.

According ot Maria ''Talking well to my customers has attracted many people to come and buy from me''.  Because of the challenges she has undergone and too much stress, Maria acknowledges that she used to be very rude to customers before she attended the Ault Literacy training and her business was almost collapsing but after going through a session on customer care and good communication skills in business, 'I changed and started to be polite to my customers'. Now days cutomers find it easy interract with me and they love buying from me added Maria. ''Some of my fellow women in the market even think I do witch craft to attract customers'' which is not true.

''Am so happy with that training by Voice for Humanity Uganda because it has enabled to manage my business very well by keeping proper records, saving and talking to customers well''. My life and that of my children is better now. I plan to expand my business and see all my children complete their education.

Maria was part of the 50 adult refugee women and girls from Boroli settlement that Voice for Humanity Uganda trained on basic literacy and numeracy skills along with other cross cutting issues like business skills management, Nutrition, Environment among others over a six months period from June to December 2019. This was a practical based training where the beneficiary women were challenged to put the skills acquired into practical use in their daily lives including their businesses. Many of the beneficiaries were already running small scale business such as the one of Maria who deals in fish and other vegetables.